Reality

The CBS game show “Survivor” has become a staple. The program isolates a group of men and women in a tropical locale, who then compete for cash and prizes. The show has been nominated for several Emmy Awards. Potential contestants vie to be on.

The Discovery Channel now has a program entitled “Naked and Afraid”. An unclothed couple attempts to locate food and craft shelter. Viewers are offered titillation in the guise of “adventure” and scientific inquiry.

The History Channel is this summer presenting a program entitled “Alone”. Survivalists live on their own in a wilderness area with limited equipment.

This is so called “reality” television. Apparently, Americans have become so bored (and disconnected from genuine risk) that we must take vicarious pleasure in the artificial challenges set for strangers in quasi-scripted settings.

While we entertain ourselves, there are those in the world who must deal with real challenges.

Very nearly half the people on earth live on less than $2.50 per day [1].

21,000 children worldwide die each day from a combination of poverty, malnutrition, and easily treatable disease [2]. That is one child every four seconds [3]. Some 1.8 million children die each year of diarrhea alone [4].

More people have access to a cell phone than a toilet [5].

These figure do not take into full account the casualties of war, or the suffering of those made refugees by war.

Greatly blessed, we are numbing ourselves to the needs of the world, to the grim reality others face daily. But that cannot last. Moses warned Israel, too, of approaching judgment.

“For they are a nation void of counsel, Nor is there any understanding in them” (Deut. 32: 28).